History of CESPA

This summer
(1996) CESPA celebrates its tenth birthday. After ten years of tilting
at government obfuscation, it is gratifying that this tenth year should
be crowned by our success in the European Court in the prescription charge
case. Moreover, there is a good chance that a similar favourable ruling
will be given by the Court, possibly also sometime this summer, in the
bus-pass case, which CESPA was instrumental in initiating and has staunchly
supported.

So how did CESPA
start?

The impetus
really came from the European Court of Justice ruling in February 1986
in the Marshall case that employment retirement ages for men and women
had to be the same. The UK then had the situation that retirement
ages had to be equal but pension ages didn't have to be. This was
an absurdity since, for most people, retirement is synonymous with pension.

The UK Government
subsequently responded to the ruling with the 1986 Sex Discrimination
Act which amended the earlier 1975 Act so that compulsory retirement ages
for men and women in the same organisation had to be equal (from 7th November
1987). But still the Government did nothing about pension age, either
in the state scheme or in occupational pension schemes.

Following the
ruling in the Marshall case, various people took up the issue of inequality
in pension age, including letters to the press, e.g. those from Joe Feely
of London published in The Guardian on 3rd April 1986 and from
Sam Watt of Glasgow published in TheGlasgow Herald on 8th
April 1986.

However, it
was independent actions of five persons in particular that led some months
later to the birth of CESPA. These actions comprised essentially contact
with the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) by three of these persons
and letters published in the national press by the other two.